Dreaded birthday parties

I'm not a fan of birthday parties.  Never really have been.  Oh, I've done a few, especially when my first two children were small, but now, we hardly ever have them.  (This is one of those sad cases where my first children got special things like birthday parties and kids number 4 and 5 are lucky to get a frosted cake.)

My kids come home from school periodically with birthday party invitations.  If we're lucky, we've got something else going that day and they can't go.  Occasionally I'll "loose" the invitation or as I have with the last two parties, "forget" to RSVP.  I feel bad about doing that.  I really do, but the truth is, I hate taking my kids to birthday parties!

I hate shopping for a kid I've never met (as is the case with 90% of the invites that come home from school.)  Then, for the actual party, I either have to drop them off and remember to pick them up two hours later (yes, I forgot to pick up a kid once) or interrupt other activities with the other kids or family because it's time to go pick up the party kid.  OR, worse, I have to stay at the party, sitting with a paper cup of lemonade while a bunch of kids and parents I don't know run around like crazy.

Then, there are those parties where an event center is rented.  The food is good pizza, sodas and a huge hand-made fondant cake.  The mom looks calm and happy and is easily directing kids to various games and activities.  She never breaks a sweat as she hands out homemade designer cookies and goodie bags to make the Academy Award winners jealous.  You know the kind.

I am not one of those moms.  My kids laugh because for the last three years, or so, any and all attempts I've made at decorating a cake have been disastrous.  Really.  I tell them to quit complaining.  The cake might be ugly, but it tastes good.  So eat it!  One year, when my youngest son turned 5, I couldn't find any birthday cake candles.  I was sure I had some, but I could not find them.  Determined that he would blow out five candles on his cake, I got five red taper candles.  They put some massive holes in the already pathetically decorated cake, but he got to blow out his candles and make his wish.

Somehow, I think his wish was that I not make him a birthday cake in the future.

I never put pictures of my kids on my blog, but oh, if you could see my son's face in this picture....  He was not happy about this cake.

This past year I got smart with his birthday.  I bought him a cake!  Yes, one chocolate supermarket cake that cost $15.  I could have made him one for less than $4, but it wouldn't have been so beautifully decorated. I also made sure I had nice, little, normal birthday candles.  He was thrilled.

I got a little off topic, birthday parties.  I don't like them!  I don't do them for my kids, I probably won't attend the one for yours.  Don't take it personally.  It's not you, it's me.

Molly and Peter

Several amazing things have happened this week.  On Wednesday,  Hubby found out his job here was ending.  That means we move wherever the next job takes us.  So, we're moving!  Most likely next month.

It's crazy how fast the news comes and you work with it.  I'd tell you where we are moving to, but I don't know myself yet.  It's looking like Virginia, but don't quote me on that yet.

So, this weekend, we started cleaning out stuff.  I've got a very large yard sale pile going.  I've been going through boxes, cleaning out stuff we don't need and other joyous tasks of this nature.

Tonight, miracle of miracles, I found a set of photos that I thought I had lost.  Honestly, I haven't seen these photos in six years and was sure they were missing forever.  Hubby will tell you how upset I've been over the years at the loss of these photos.  Tonight, I was searching through a box.  It was probably never unpacked when we moved here three years ago.  (Yeah, I know that's pretty sad to still have unpacked boxes from the last move....)

So, tonight for the first time in six years, I share with you a picture from my visit to Kensington Gardens in London back in 2005 to see the Peter Pan statue.  I was 7 months pregnant with kid #4.

Molly and Peter

Peter Pan, my first love

I don't guess I've really talked about Peter Pan before, but I can't not talk about him any longer.

Peter Pan was my first crush.

Many years ago, when I was just a young tot of two, (maybe younger, but I don't remember that far back) I had a record player.  I listened to music and stories on my record player.  I remember having several versions of the story of Peter Pan that I loved listening to.

Peter Pan frequently sent Tinker Bell to my home to visit me.  I remember more than once, sitting in my living room while a light darted about the ceiling.  I spoke to it.  My parents might tell you that it was my dad holding a hidden flashlight, but that wouldn't be the truth - it was Tinker Bell.

I'm sure I visited Never Never Land after falling asleep many nights.

When I was three, just before Halloween, I fell and broke my left arm, just above the elbow.  I already had my costume and no broken arm was going to stop me from dressing as, you guessed it, Peter Pan.

My brother and I. 1978

At the preschool Halloween class party.  Most of the time, I wore my sling inside my shirt.

Peter was on my 4th birthday cake and I had either a mobile or a lamp from my very early childhood that featured Peter.

One of my favorite records as a child was a theatrical performance of Peter Pan on LP.  It was a very groovy recording with original music.  I LOVED that record.  I can still sing the opening song from it.  "There's a magic place I know, where it's summer all year through.  A land at rainbows end of games and let's pretend, Never Land is waiting for you!"

Terrytown Players, I love you.
The record was made in 1977

I was given a beautiful story book from my parents in 1980 for Christmas.  It had the most amazing pictures in it.  I looked at those beautiful works of art over and over.

Stunning art work.
It really set my small child's imagination running.

I went to see Peter Pan when it came to Dallas and starred Sandy Duncan! (late 70's early 80's, I don't know the year)  I remember going to see that.  It was such a thrill.  Years later I was introduced to the Mary Martin version of Peter Pan.  I taped it off the TV and had it on VCR tape so I was able to watch it over and over and over.  "I have a place where dreams are born and time is never planned.  It's not on any chart, you must find it with your heart, Never Never Land."  Then, as a teenager, the Cathy Rigby version came to Dallas and I saw that performed.

The Playbill for Cathy Rigby's Peter Pan

I have several versions of the books to read.

The book on the left is a nice hardback, the center book I got for super cheap at a used bookstore.  It's great for just reading without worrying about destroying the book.  The blue book on the right it the one with the beautiful artwork that I got for Christmas when I was very small.

The first unabridged book of Peter pan that I read.

I learned very quickly when reading Peter Pan, that it was much more than just a children's book.  The language was difficult first of all.  It's much darker story than the plays and movies I had seen.  Peter is still lovable, but less so.  He is an mischievous imp.  You get so annoyed with him in his complete lack of understanding of Wendy's feelings, and yet, when he is hurt and about to die, alone on a rock from a wound inflicted by Hook, you want to cry for Peter. 

There were movies, like Hook, in 1991 that were lots of fun.  There were other movie versions that were well done, but not my favorite telling of the story....  I was in the play Peter Pan when I was 10 or so years old.  I played the snake.  I got to hang out with the crocodile.  I was in every scene the crocodile was in.  I don't have any photos of my in my snake costume, but I know my mom has at least one, somewhere. 

I tried to convince my husband to name one of our children Peter, but I never could get him to go with me on that.

I had the most awesome record ever of the Disney's Peter Pan:

Yes, amazing pictures from the movie printed right onto the record.

As a teenager, probably 16 years old, I did a cross stitch of Peter and the gang:

It hangs on the wall in my home now.

Then, six years ago, I had the opportunity to go to London for about 36 hours.  I didn't care what I saw or did in London, as long as I visited the Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens.  It took several subway trains from my hotel and a very, very long walk through a huge park before I found Peter, but found him I did. A kind stranger took a picture of me with Peter Pan.  I was 8 months pregnant at the time with baby #4.  Sadly, I haven't seen those pictures since coming back from London.  I have no idea what happened to them.  I hope one day to find them, but until then, just know that I've been there.  I've seen Peter.  I sat on a bench across the walk from him, looked at him and thanked him for the many, many wonderful years we've know each other.

Scary Thoughts

We love our holiday TV specials, Garfield, Charlie Brown and such.  With this being Halloween, I started to think of my favorite shows and their Halloween episodes.  Most TV shows, that I can think of, have at least one Halloween themed show during their run. 

Right now, as I am writing this, my daughter is watching Blues Clues.  It is the episode where they are trying to find out what Blue is afraid of.  At one point, they enter into an old haunted house that is occupied by a little ghost named Boo.  Every time some one says Boo's name, everyone screams.  It's funny.

My favorite TV show of all time, The Monkees, really didn't have a specific Halloween episode.  They did have four or five shows that took place in haunted mansions with monsters, vampires, werewolves, mummies and coffins.  Definitely a couple of great episodes to watch during Halloween.

Another favorite TV show for me is SeaQuest DSV.  They had a Halloween one that if I remember right, aired on Halloween.  It took place on an old sunken ship where tormented souls of ghosts did their best to scare the crew of the SeaQuest.  I've seen the episode three or four times now, but one part of the show still freaks me out.  It's at the beginning.  The crew is watching some old footage of a Titanic-like ship.  They pause the old movie to discuss what to do and while the movie is paused, one of the faces in the movie turns to look at them.  Freaks me out every time.  (Shivers)

I prefer to laugh than be scared, so I'll share a favorite YouTube clip of a not-so-scary witch.  Just a warning - do NOT eat anything while watching this.  I did this morning and about choked on my cereal because I was laughing so hard.

What's your favorite Halloween TV episode?

Halloween movies and music

We love Halloween time here at our house.  Personally, I just love that the weather is cooler and I can bake with pumpkin til my heart's content.

We love watching our favorite holiday movies and shows:
Garfield's Halloween
It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown
Disney's Halloween Special
The Worst Witch

We listen to great music:
"Toccata and Fugue" by Bach (the great classic organ song)
"In the Hall of the Mountain King" by Grieg
"The Sorcerer's Apprentice" by Dukas
"Night on Bald Mountain" by Rimsky-Korsakov
"This is Halloween" from Nightmare Before Christmas by Danny Elfman
Monster Mash

I found this fun list:
Dracula’s top ten favorite songs
10. You’re so vein
9. Fangs for the Memories
8. You’ve got a Fiend
7. You Don’t Bring me Plasma Anymore
6. Bat’s the Way (uh-huh, uh-huh) I like it
5. You Light up my Crypt
4. Tie a Yellow Ribbon ‘Round the Old Oak Casket
3. Don’t Go Stakin’ My Heart
2. Stranglers in the Night
1. He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Donor

The Scary Hotel

A favorite blog inspired me to write this little story:

A little over a year ago I got to go to Detroit.  I spent four days and three nights there.  I was several blocks away from the downtown area.  Now, I’ve heard a lot of bad stories about downtown Detroit, but I have to say, the actual downtown area was very nice.  The skyscrapers were impressive and the streets were nice.  Now, you leave the immediate downtown area and things get pretty scary pretty fast.

I was about three blocks away from the downtown in a cheap hotel. 

There is no way to really describe the hotel and do it justice. I didn’t feel entirely safe.  The room was quite large, painted pink and had one 60 watt light-bulb in it.  It was dark.  In one corner of the room was, from what the manager told me, a Jacuzzi.  Yes, a Jacuzzi right in my room!  However, as I checked in, he told me the Jacuzzi didn’t work.  It was in a corner of the room and it was so dark in that corner, I couldn’t even see the bottom of the dark green tub. For all I knew, there could have been a dead body in there.  Even though the Jacuzzi didn’t work, I was probably charged extra just for the pleasure of having the view of one in my room.

There were bugs in the shower and I saw several on the bed.  Thankfully for me, the room had a couch.  I prefer to sleep on couches anyway, but after seeing the bugs in the bed, I wasn’t sleeping there.  The couch probably wasn’t much better, but I never actually saw a bug on it.

The last night I was there, there was a lot of activity going on in the halls.  I didn’t sleep well.  I kept the door locked and bolted, but someone tried to get into my room about three in the morning.  I think the people were quite drunk because I finally heard one of them say, “oops, wrong door!”

The only thing that room had going for it was Wi Fi.  I was able to hook up to the Internet and write a bad review of the hotel.  Stay Away!

The super pink hotel room

The dark corner with the mysterious Jacuzzi.  The flash from the

camera makes it look lighter than it actually was in the room.

This summer, as a family, we ended up stopping quite late one night in Flagstaff on our way to see extended family.  Some huge motorcycle convention must have been going on.  Every hotel we stopped at was full and the parking lots were filled with motorcycles.  We finally found a motel that was probably built in the 50’s.  Judging from the décor in the room, it still had its original furnishings.  I think the bedding and pillows were original too.  Our entire family slept in one room on the beds, and all over the floor.  Now, this was in July and the window A/C didn’t work.  As Flagstaff is high elevation, the outside air did cool down, but not in our room.  I hardly slept.  It was too hot.  I should have slept outside in the open air, but I was afraid of some motorcycle gang from the hotel next door might see me sleeping on the patio.  Hubby wasn’t impressed with the room at all, but I have to say, I never saw a bug in the room during our 10 hours in the motel. (Except for the dead one smashed on the bathroom wall next to the toilet, but hey, at least it was dead.)

sharing a memory

Sandrina the Sprite

Yep, that's me about a million years ago.  Well, maybe not a million, but it feels like a million years and several life times ago that I was Sandrina.  I loved that costume.  I felt so elegant.  That is a unicorn at my feet.  The play was called The Unicorn of Zer.  I don't remember what the unicorn had to do with the story at all since there was no unicorn in the show.  There were some witches, some warlocks, a king, queen and princess, ladies in waiting, lords of the land, several trolls, a dragon, a bunch of kids, and four sprites.

How the director kept that many kids and teenagers in line, I'll never know.  I went on for the next several years and worked with a couple of these folks a number of times.  A few years after this, I did a Halloween show with two of the cast members here.  I was a vampire.  I had a purple afro wig.   We sang about bats in the belfry.  Good times!

A trip down memory lane

I was trying to remember the name of someone I went to college with, so I went and pulled out my journals I kept in college.

I was a great journal writer during those years.  I wrote everyday.  I wrote about classes, homework assignments, trips to the library to study or watch movies, going out with friends, leaving the apartment at 10 at night to go to a dance on campus, campouts, band recitals, football games...  I was a busy girl.

It's interesting because every entry ended with my signature and the time that I finished writing.  Most of the times were late, often around 11:30 at night.  It was so amusing to read those entries, especially the ones that I wrote really late, because they are often full of funny sleepy writings.  I would randomly capitalize letters or I would substitute words, instead of saying, "I had a lot of work,"  I would write, "I had a lot of world."  Writing in your sleep can be very funny.  One entry had some random sentence about cranberry sauce.  I later wrote that I had been dreaming about a guy offering me some cranberry sauce.  Let me tell you, it takes talent to write in your sleep!

Every Sunday's entry mentioned if I watched SeaQuest or not.  It came on Sunday evenings and I loved watching it.

I wish I had written the last names of more people.  I wrote about Stephen who did this, and Holly who did that, and how I saw Sean and Kristy on campus.  Now I'm reading these again and wondering who are these people? Still, I'm grateful that I wrote what I did down.  It's been fun to go back and read about my college years.  They were so very, very different from my life now.

One thing I did write down were the names of some of the music we played in band.  This is great! I looked up these songs on YouTube!  There are videos of bands performing these concert songs, so right now, while I'm typing, I'm listening to a recording of a concert band performing "Scenes From the Louvre, Movement 3." The music is familiar.  It's been so very long since I played in the band.  I miss playing my bassoon!  YouTube is great!

I'm so thankful for those late night journal writings.  It's a time in my life that I loved, but as the years go by, those memories become more vague.  I'll always remember my time in college and I'll always remember certain parts of it, but it's those details that are so easily forgotten that I'm grateful for my journals.  The heartaches and celebrations of everyday college life.  What fun it was!